Old Man, We Miss You So Much!

When Belgian referee Frank De Bleeckere blew the final whistle, Ferguson sat in front of the away-team bench, leaning slightly forward, his eyes fixed on the pitch.

A layer of mist seemed to veil those cloudy old eyes, making it impossible to tell what he was thinking at that moment.

The chewing gum had been in his mouth for who knew how long and had long since lost its flavor, but he seemed to have forgotten to spit it out.

He simply sat there quietly, watching in silence.

His assistants, Mike Phelan and René Meulensteen, had both gone out to comfort the players.

The Champions League knockout stage was one of the cruelest formats in the world. Although it was played over two legs, the pain of defeat it brought the players was in no way inferior to that of single-match cup competitions—not even the European Cup, or the World Cup.

Every team that made it this far had endured an entire season and dozens of hard-fought matches, sometimes even several seasons of adjustments and preparation, before earning the right to compete on this stage.

Defeat felt to them as if the sky itself had collapsed.

At that moment, Ferguson could absolutely understand how the players felt, because he was just as dejected as they were—perhaps even more so.

That dejection made them wonder whether all the effort they had put in over the past season had been meaningful at all.

He had never been a man who was easily satisfied. He was ambitious to the core!

When he had yet to win the Champions League, he had thought that winning one would complete his managerial career.

But after winning the treble, he still had not been satisfied. He began to feel that he ought to win a second one.